SPRING RECRUITMENT AT UGA

[SWTXBelle]

But even with every member of the chapter participating, you have to rely on each other - you can't meet more than a few pnms per party. The reservations some of you have are in fact problems right now - especially at some of the larger recruitments, where, let's face it, the vast majority of chapter members are making their choices for membership selection based on what their sisters say, not on having personally met each pnm.

I think every chapter member should still get to vote for membership selection - and it may be that the chapter wants to rotate members so more women get to meet pnms. It could work - and it could be good for chapters, too. Every chapter has women who are great conversationalists and rushers, and women who aren't comfortable doing that. Some can cook, some perform, some paint scenery - I'm not saying to not havethe whole chapter participate. It would be especially good for those recruitments which are held during classes - missing recruitment would not be the crisis it sometimes is now.

[UGAalum94]

This may seem odd too, but I'm not sure the benefit to smaller chapters is that great by limiting the number of rushers.

Sure, the smaller chapters don't appear smaller right off the bat, but you might have a better chance competing with a whole cross section of a chapter than with just the top 50 (or whatever) most socially gifted.

From a pure pragmatic standpoint though, I think you'd have to limit numbers just so not to overwhelm the PNMs. I'm assuming that the PNMs will be broken into groups, and with only 150-200 (or whatever) and 17 groups that you could go to, you don't need 4 member to 1 PNM ratio.

My guess is that it's to really make people do an informal recruitment event rather than just recycle parties from formal.

[SWTXBelle]

The problem with appearing much smaller is you never get over that initial "Oh, they must have a problem or they wouldn't be so small". Meeting a cross-section then isn't an issue - pnms too often simply won't give them a chance. Some chapters have used members from near-by chapters to fill out their numbers - I hate that. You need to be meeting girls who might be your sisters.

It's just an idea - I think we all are looking ways for ways to improve recruitment. I would be interested in knowing if any school does do it that way, and if that made a difference.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by SWTXBelle

The problem with appearing much smaller is you never get over that initial "Oh, they must have a problem or they wouldn't be so small". Meeting a cross-section then isn't an issue - pnms too often simply won't give them a chance. Some chapters have used members from near-by chapters to fill out their numbers - I hate that. You need to be meeting girls who might be your sisters.

It's just an idea - I think we all are looking ways for ways to improve recruitment. I would be interested in knowing if any school does do it that way, and if that made a difference.

Absolutely. I was just thinking of UGA specifically and even there it might help; it just might have some unintended consequences as well.

[KSUViolet06]

Originally Posted by SWTXBelle

The problem with appearing much smaller is you never get over that initial "Oh, they must have a problem or they wouldn't be so small". Meeting a cross-section then isn't an issue - pnms too often simply won't give them a chance. Some chapters have used members from near-by chapters to fill out their numbers - I hate that. You need to be meeting girls who might be your sisters.

I tend to think that bringing in members from other chapters actually hurts a chapter. The women may be passionate about XYZ, but they can't speak to the experience of being a member of THAT chapter, which is alot of what the PNMs will be asking about. The women from other schools can't talk about how fun the mixer with ___ fraternity was, or why they do _____ for the local philanthropy event. That leads PNMs to wonder "Why are some of the girls at XYZ from different schools, and the girls at AAA, BBB, etc. all from the same school?"

[SWTXBelle]

Agreed. I've never know bringing in other chapter's members to work. (But of course, my experience is limited.)

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by SWTXBelle

Agreed. I've never know bringing in other chapter's members to work. (But of course, my experience is limited.)

I think I've heard of a few cases where girls were brought in to sing or stand around to make the group look bigger in the whole chapter setting, but didn't actually do any one on one rushing.

That seems like it might help if you had enough actual chapter members to still rush girls. When you've got 70 or so PNMs per party, as I think you would at UGA for first round (1200/17), I think all the chapter have 70+ members. So if you brought in some members from other chapters to seem as big and the party as full as others would be, maybe?

I honestly don't know what they do these days in terms of door chants or whatever, but I can remember all of us assembling in the foyer. If we only had 100 girls and other groups had 150+, the first impression was still different even if PNMs liked the members they met. With girls from other campuses to swell that first assembly, you could avoid that and still only really have PNMs meet your chapter. It's still a little bait and switch and for that reason undesirable, but when you're dealing with first impressions carrying a lot of weight, I'm not going to judge.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by SWTXBelle

But even with every member of the chapter participating, you have to rely on each other - you can't meet more than a few pnms per party. The reservations some of you have are in fact problems right now - especially at some of the larger recruitments, where, let's face it, the vast majority of chapter members are making their choices for membership selection based on what their sisters say, not on having personally met each pnm.

Yes, I'm aware of that at large chapters. The problem could come, as KC said, if the SAME 50 women (out of 200) are the only ones meeting ALL the PNMs. At a regular rush, you at least have all the chapter members' input as far as the women they did spend time with. I mean - what if those 50 sisters you pick to do the rushing don't want anyone who's (random example) on a sports team? They could come up with bogus reasons as to why they didn't like those PNMs and get people cut who the other 3/4 of the chapter would have really liked.

You would HOPE that wouldn't happen and that the chapter would have enough brains to pick a cross section of sisters who are different in all ways, but with chapter politics sometimes you never know.

Depending on the chapter's/GLO's voting policies, who knows, they might not be able to rotate sisters - maybe some of them say that you have to see a PNM twice to vote on them. I don't know, I'm just throwing that out there.

[shadden]

Many of the houses will use their most recent initiates - theoretically this should be a cross section of the house, and with Fall pledge classes at roughly 60 for most houses, the numbers are right. I think the idea of seeing roughly the same number of girls at each house is great - should benefit the smaller houses.

[carnation]

Can somebody who's on campus tell me if women who rushed in the fall need to get new recs for this recruitment?

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by shadden

Many of the houses will use their most recent initiates - theoretically this should be a cross section of the house, and with Fall pledge classes at roughly 60 for most houses, the numbers are right. I think the idea of seeing roughly the same number of girls at each house is great - should benefit the smaller houses.

For informal with a small quota, seeing this recruitment as sort of a prep for fall with the new girls makes sense.

On the other hand, if I were in charge of selecting for a chapter who would attract for my group this spring, I'd go with the folks who I thought had the strongest interpersonal skills and represented the chapter in a outstanding way. These folks might not be absolutely new to recruitment.

I think most chapters are going to do very well no matter how they decide to select participants and going with one fall pledge class avoids any hurt feelings.

There are pluses an minuses to any method of selecting them.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by 33girl

Yes, I'm aware of that at large chapters. The problem could come, as KC said, if the SAME 50 women (out of 200) are the only ones meeting ALL the PNMs. At a regular rush, you at least have all the chapter members' input as far as the women they did spend time with. I mean - what if those 50 sisters you pick to do the rushing don't want anyone who's (random example) on a sports team? They could come up with bogus reasons as to why they didn't like those PNMs and get people cut who the other 3/4 of the chapter would have really liked.

You would HOPE that wouldn't happen and that the chapter would have enough brains to pick a cross section of sisters who are different in all ways, but with chapter politics sometimes you never know.

Depending on the chapter's/GLO's voting policies, who knows, they might not be able to rotate sisters - maybe some of them say that you have to see a PNM twice to vote on them. I don't know, I'm just throwing that out there.

This may seem like a silly thing to point out, but I don't think most chapters who previously had spring recruitment were doing COB/COR events with the whole chapter rushing anyway. So, I'm guessing that with the relatively small size of anticipated quota (around 200/17?), it's just not a big risk. I suspect what we're talking about is letting slightly more than 25% of a chapter pick new members who will total less than 10% of the chapter, maybe much less than 10% at some chapters.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

This may seem like a silly thing to point out, but I don't think most chapters who previously had spring recruitment were doing COB/COR events with the whole chapter rushing anyway.

SRSLY??? That's weird. To me, anyway. If a chapter is struggling for numbers, I would think they need to put every girl they can get in a COB event - it ups the chance that one of them will connect with a rushee.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by 33girl

SRSLY??? That's weird. To me, anyway. If a chapter is struggling for numbers, I would think they need to put every girl they can get in a COB event - it ups the chance that one of them will connect with a rushee.

Well, it's the nature of informal recruitment events and the size of the chapters. Even the smallest chapter at UGA has more than 100 members, I think. If you only expected 20 or so PNMs, wouldn't 100 rushers be kind of awkward if you were doing pretty much anything other than hosting a party at your house? I think most of the spring classes last year for the groups who took them were in the 5 to 15 range, but I have really no idea how many girls participated at events. If they had parties at the houses for the first event, maybe they did have the whole chapter participate. You also have to remember that spring rush was sort of intentionally low key for a lot of groups and they were mainly rushing girls they already knew, I think.

Struggling for numbers here is just kind of relative, I guess.
Sure, if you had a chapter of 30, you'd need them all.